@mergy@philosophy “Books by Plato, Aristotle, Hobbes, Locke, Kant, Emerson, Thoreau, Whitman as well as Wollstonecraft, Austen, Woolf, Baldwin, Hurston and Orwell are worthy of introductory collegiate courses for students of all majors.”
Agreed they’re worth studying, but not all worth adopting. The author’s complaints are the result of millennia of Platonism and centuries of its fatal apotheosis in Kant and his successors.
Aristotle and Xunzi on Shame, Moral Education, and the Good Life by Jingyi Jenny Zhao, 2024
The first major work that takes two philosophers from the ancient Greek and early Chinese traditions to stimulate discussion of an interdisciplinary nature on the rich and complex topic of the emotions-in particular, of shame.
"Conceit is epilepsy and eyesight is a lying sense."
— #Heraclitus (dubious) fragment 46
"All humans by nature desire to know. An indication of this is our liking for the perceptual capacities. For even apart from their utility, these are liked because of themselves — and most of all the one because of the eyes."
— #Aristotle, (dubious) #Metaphysics, 980a21
We’re back to scientist fanfic, as Sumner imagines a dinner with Aristotle, primarily to disabuse him of his ideas about how bees are cooler than wasps. #books#wasps#aristotle
Like, I just do not know what to do with this! Sumner’s footnote here explains that she isn’t a historian, so we should give some latitude for artistic license. I feel like we could get to the science without the dinner visit! But it’s at least compelling. I just don’t know what it’s compelling me to do #books#wasps#aristotle#dinner
Well, I was going to re-read Aristotle but I'm actually a bit burnt out after that, so I'm moving on to "Buddha." I started the Sutta Piṭaka today. I'm done with the first two in Digha Nikāya and they weren't that long but there sure are a lot of them, so I think this is going to take a few months but won't be as difficult. Only thing that stresses me a bit is I wanted to re-do Nicomachean Ethics but I really needed the variation... hmm.
Saw the #libertarian trope again today, that Government should not intervene to "do good", because #virtue can only arise when freely chosen, not when compelled (for example by the State.) Often expressed as a quote from Frank #Meyer (https://www.dissentmagazine.org/blog/know-your-enemy-frank-meyer-the-father-of-fusionism/), who was misappropriating a venerable lineage including #Kant and #Aristotle. I'm sick of hearing this obvious nonsense used as a fig leaf to justify not just abandoning those in need, but making everyone else abandon them too. 1/n
Today I learned of the tale of Phyllis and #aristotle OMG is my mind racing right now thinking about it! 🥵
Aristotle had an eye for Phyllis. Phyllis would not entertain him unless he allowed her to ride on his back while he was naked & #humiliated. The kings son, Alexander witnessed the event for his education that feminine charms could bend the greatest male intellect.
Aristotle’s ‘golden mean’ is his theory that excellence lies in the middle way between two extreme states: excess and deficiency. This article considers the theory — and shares Aristotle’s tips for living in accordance with it.
#Ethics#Aristotle#Philosophy: "Our vocabulary of commendation and condemnation is perpetually changing, but it has always relied on “thick” ethical terms, which combine description and evaluation.
This way of thinking about ethical life—in which the basic question is who we are, not what we do—has foundations in a work of Aristotle’s from the fourth century B.C., known as the Nicomachean Ethics. A new translation and abridgment, by the University of Pennsylvania philosopher and classicist Susan Sauvé Meyer, comes with a new title: “How to Flourish: An Ancient Guide to Living Well” (Princeton). The original text, Meyer explains, has been whittled down to “Aristotle’s main claims and positive arguments, omitting digressions, repetitions, methodological remarks, and skirmishes with opponents.”"
"I’ve read many of these books, and every one of them wants you to know that in his Poetics Aristotle lays out the eternal, universal principles of storytelling. And they want you to know these are the principles you should follow to write your next novel or play or movie script.
"And I’m here to tell you that I’ve read the Poetics, and they are all liars."
#Aristotle made a distinction between three kinds of #friendship: utility-based, pleasure-based and character-based friendships. Each arises from what is valued in the friend: their usefulness, the pleasure of their company or their good character.
"If you study philosophy at a British or American #university, your #education in the history of the subject will likely be modest. Most universities teach #Plato and #Aristotle, skip about two millennia to #Descartes, zip through the highlights of #Empiricism and #Rationalism to #Kant, and then drop things again until the 20th Century, where #Frege and #Russell arise from the mists of the previous centuries’ Idealism ...”
Guest editors: Catherine Dromelet and Willem Lemmens (both University of Antwerp)
What is #philosophy? How does a philosopher proceed and what goals do they pursue? How do they distinguish between good and bad philosophy? Being interested in such questions is sometimes labeled as metaphilosophy. Recent publications on metaphilosophy are essential references when it comes to these questions. The prevailing tendency in these and related contributions is to address methodological and systematic problems relevant in contemporary discourses, while the historical context of metaphilosophical issues is typically ignored (with few exceptions showing, for instance, historical affinities within the Marxist tradition). The present issue aims to address this hiatus. The meaning of the word ‘philosophy’ has undergone profound transformations over time. What we consider ‘modern science’, for instance, emerged in early modern times within the bounds of what was then considered ‘philosophy’. Similarly, ‘experimental philosophy’ had a specific meaning in the early modern period: it came close to what we would call ‘empirical science’, but today the latter means largely an empirical survey of conceptual intuitions, while the former has now a very different meaning for several contemporary philosophers. These are just conspicuous illustrations of how the meaning of the word ‘philosophy’ has been changing over time. The special issue ‘Metaphilosophy in History’ aims at surveying the most significant changes in the self-conception of philosophy and at introducing historical insights and considerations into contemporary discourses on metaphilosophy. It provides an opportunity to focus on specific authors and schools of thought, to highlight distinctive aspects and phases in the evolution of the self-understanding of philosophy. So, while much of metaphilosophical work so far has been concerned with systematic issues, our aim is (1) to provide a historical perspective on metaphilosophical enterprises through a reconstruction of the self-conception of philosophy up to the very recent past, and (2) to infuse contemporary problems of metaphilosophy with historical consciousness and sensitivity.
For this special issue of History of Philosophy and Logical Analysis we are looking for articles (up to 10.000 words) that seek to provide a new, diversified outlook on historically informed metaphilosophy, based on in-depth original research. The questions that we are interested in include: Did metaphilosophy play any important role in the past philosophers' agenda? If they held metaphilosophical views, did their philosophical practice follow them? Was there more agreement on the metaphilosophical level than in the argumentative practice, or vice versa? Papers should focus on specific historical figures, presenting their case as illustrative of a more general tendency or movement. This is less pressing in the case of very central figures like #Aristotle, #Hegel, #Wittgenstein, etc., but it is desirable in the case of less influential authors.
Submission deadline:
The articles will appear in HPLA 27.1 (2024)